Elves (Middle-earth): history, description, names

John Tolkien is best known for his trilogy "The Lord of the Rings". Her plot develops on the expanses of a fictional world, inhabited by different races, including elves. Middle Earth, thanks to the efforts of the author, received a rich history. The Elven people play a key role in it.

Inspiration of Tolkien

Contrary to the established stereotype, Tolkien is not the creator of the elves. He borrowed this image from Germanic and Scandinavian pagan myths. In them, the elves are the spirits of the forest. From there, Tolkien took gnomes and other characters of his fictional world.

The writer supplemented the mythological image with his own ideas. In Tolkien, the elves became a rational and powerful race. Representatives of this people are outwardly similar to people, but have their own characteristics. Elves live for so long that by human standards their life expectancy is approaching infinity. Nevertheless, they can be killed by force, and in this they do not differ from people. In the world of Tolkien there are no such ailments that the elves could suffer from. Middle Earth is home to many peoples, but it is this race that is distinguished by the sharpest insight, sight and hearing.

The History of the Elves

According to the chronicles that Tolkien left, the elves appeared in his world long before people. Chronologically, this event belongs to the First Age. Elves were awakened by the gods even before the Sun and Moon were created. So they woke up under a clear starry sky.

Initially, the elves appeared in Middle-earth. At this time the world was inhabited by the ancient gods of the Valar. They called the elves to Valinor, a mythical country that was radically different from Middle-earth. It was at this point in time that a single nation was divided into clans. Some of them agreed to go to Valinor, others remained on their native land.

In the Second Age was created the elven state, which was located in the forest. It is it that appears in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Names and languages of elves

Interestingly, the names of the elves of Middle-earth have several variants of pronunciation. The fact is that Tolkien by education was a linguist. He taught at universities and was interested in the creation of artificial languages, which were the quintessence of the languages of different human cultures. The author of "The Lord of the Rings" wanted to create a realistic world in which the representatives of each people would have not only their own culture, but also an adverb. For elves, Tolkien created several languages at once, including Quenya and Sindarin. Their use depended on belonging to a particular clan of this numerous people.

For each language Tolkien created his own phonetics, grammar and other rules of use. The names of the elves of Middle-earth were written according to the spoken language of its bearer.

Life cycle

The author of The Lord of the Rings and the novel The Hobbit wrote many books devoted to his fictional world. Many of them can be characterized as chronicles, which narrate about the history of Middle-earth and its inhabitants. Elfs Tolkien paid much attention. He talked about their way of life and habits not only in works, but also in working correspondence with colleagues.

The immortality of the elves was also supplemented by their biological ability to quickly heal their own wounds. If the representative of this people still died (for example, in battle), then his soul went to the Halls of Mandas in distant Valinor. This was necessary in order to be cleansed of all the worldly evil that persecuted the elf during his lifetime in Middle-earth. After the spirit of the deceased passed the purification procedure, he again received a body that looked similar to that which he had in his previous life. Theoretically, the elf could return to Middle-earth, but in practice no one did this, preferring to stay in Valinor. The only exception was the character Glorfindel, who appeared on the pages of the Lord of the Rings. His name complements the list of elves of Middle-earth, who participated in the war against Mordor. At the end of the novel all this people decided to sail on ships back to Valinor.

Travel to Valinor

The reason why the elves left Middle-earth is that after the War of the Ring, which was described in The Lord of the Rings, their physical strength gradually began to fade. The only place where they could continue to live was Valinor, a distant land in which there were never any people.

The kingdoms of elves existed thanks to rings that were powerful magical artifacts. All of them were destroyed, and the last of them was taken to Mordor in the main novel of Tolkien. Because of this, the elves had to sail overseas, leaving the entire continent to people.

Those who stayed in Middle-earth after the events of The Lord of the Rings, eventually deteriorated more and more until they became a primitive people inhabiting caves and valleys. They lost many of the features inherent in their ancestors, immortality, wisdom. Crafts and arts were forgotten, including music, which was very much loved by the elves of Liholesia.